Stand Up
by Jane Newman
Summary: "You are too you know. Stronger than you think, I mean." Finn Hudson has always felt the pressure to be perfect. Will social outcast Rachel Berry be able to get him out of his comfort zone and stand up to the powers that be? Finchel w/ some Klaine.


**A/N: Hey guys! So this is my very first fic and I doubt anyone will read it. That said, I'd just like to tell you that the main couple focus is Finchel though there will be some Klaine and I have also added the Anderberry sibling AU since it's one of my favourites. Anyway, here you go!**

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><p>Rachel knocked on the door, only to find it unlocked as it swung open, the loud music hitting her like a wave as she entered the house. She looked around and spotted many of her peers drunkenly dancing to the music coming from the stereo, most of them half dressed. She wandered into one of the back rooms to find her brother. As she passed the random couples stood in the hallways making out she heard a loud cheer coming from one of the end rooms. Opening the door slightly, she saw a crowd of large boys with their backs to her, staring at something in front of them. She slowly made her way through the room and to the edge of the crowd, pushing her way through to find out what they were watching.<p>

"Blaine Anderson-Berry!" Many of the boys turned to see the red-faced brunette wearing a pink duffle coat and an angry look on her face.

"Rach? What are you doing here?" The boy in question, Blaine, was stood in the centre of the crowd, holding a shot glass filled with what could only be vodka and many other empty shot glasses surrounding him.

"What do you mean what am I doing here? I'm saving your ass!" She stepped forward toward her brother, ignoring the stares of the other boys around her.

"You can save my ass any time Berry!" one of them shouted from the back. She decidedly ignored the delinquent and went about getting her brother away from this party. She attempted to grab his arm but he pulled back, almost falling to the ground in his drunken haze.

"I don't want to leave. This place is great!" He slurred as the rest of the teenagers in the room cheered.

"This place is filled with horny teenagers, plenty of alcohol and loud, insufferable music. There is nothing great about it. I wouldn't be surprised if I found a bong in the next room!"

"Woah Berry, you into that stuff?" A familiar voice called from the side of the crowd. Rachel turned her head and found herself staring at the one and only Noah Puckerman.

"No Noah, I am most definitely not 'into that stuff'." She pointed a finger in his direction and gave him a stern glare.

"Hey, okay. No need to go all 'mom' on us." he held his hands up in front of him in a way of surrender.

"I think I'll need to 'go all mom' on you if I want my brother to be alive by morning!" She looked back towards Blaine and shook her head as he poured himself another shot.

"Relax Berry, it's only vodka shots. What's the worst that can happen?" Rachel turned her head back to Noah as he spoke.

"You don't understand do you? Blaine should have never joined the football team. I knew he'd get into something like this because of you lot. I don't want him becoming a doped up, too-dumb-to-pass-ninth-grade-math playboy like the rest of you!" Puck sent her a harsh stare as she shouted.

"Well at least us doped up, dumbass playboys actually have friends." That stung. Puck kept his eyes trained on the small girl in front of him as the insult passed his lips. He expected a witty remark back, another insult or even a walloping around the head. But what he didn't expect was for her to go running out of the room, tears streaming down her face and the entire room watching as she turned into a sobbing mess. Damn. Maybe that was too harsh. And that's by Puck's standards.

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><p>Rachel sat by herself on the deck in front of the house. She'd run out of the room filled with boys as fast as she could and collapsed onto this spot, knowing no one would notice she was there. She sat with tears staining her rosy cheeks and her body trembling. She didn't usually take it so much to heart when people insulted her, she was used to it by now. But what Noah had said really hurt her. He'd voiced one of her most sensitive insecurities in a room filled with the school's football team, who were also the most popular guys in school and some of her bullies. She'd found it more embarrassing than anything. No one liked Rachel and she knew that perfectly well. She at least expected to get a little less hate when her brother joined the football team and became one of their allies but in true McKinley form, they didn't care that she was his sister. The only time Blaine and Rachel ever spoke nowadays was over dinner at home when they were forced to by their parents. He'd ignored her as soon as he began playing for the team and she wasn't all that surprised. She was Rachel Berry: bottom of the high school food chain.<p>

"Uh, hey. Are you okay?" Rachel whipped her head around to see where the voice was coming from. She gasped as she stared into the gorgeous face of Finn Hudson, the quarterback of The Titans and best friend of Puck. She sat slightly frozen and wondered why he was talking to her at all. "I… I saw what happened in there and I wanted to see if you were okay." He sat beside her, his warmth suddenly spreading over Rachel's body. She didn't know what to do. It wasn't everyday when the most popular guy in school came over to talk to her.

Finn had never been one of the people who bullied Rachel. Sure, he went along with Puck's stupid pranks and occasionally the slushying but he never did anything to her directly and with intention. Rachel guessed that was why she seemed to like him so much. It could have been because of his popularity, the way he never seemed to say a bad word about anyone, or maybe it was his eyes. Eyes she'd never seen this close up before. Gorgeous amber eyes that she could easily get lost in if given the chance. Eyes that were now staring at her, waiting for an answer.

"Y-yeah I'm… I'm okay." She spluttered, tears still caught in the back of her throat.

"Are you sure? Because you don't look okay." He still stared, though at this point Rachel found it difficult to look him in the eye. "What Puck said… He's a dick. He shouldn't have said anything."

"It… It's my fault really. I was the one to insult him first. I deserved that." Rachel looked down to her feet, trying to hold back the tears. "Plus it's true. I don't have any friends." Finn's heart nearly broke right there on the spot.

"I'm sure you have some friends. I mean you must have. You're friends with Kurt right? My step brother?"

"Hardly. We're only ever pleasant to one another when we're discussing musicals and things of that nature during glee. I know he doesn't actually like me."

"Hey I'm sure that's not true." Rachel lifted her head at his kind words and her heart warmed at the sight of his infamous crooked grin.

"Why are you doing this Finn?" His face fell at her words and he found himself unable to respond. "Why are you being nice to me? You're the quarter back for Christ's sake, you should be leading the haters."

"Maybe I don't want to be leading them." He looked down to the ground and heaved a deep sigh. "I've always had to live up to their expectations. I've always had to be perfect. I've always had to have the perfect girlfriend, have the perfect football score and I've always had to be the perfect jerk. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be the guy who goes around throwing eggs at people and throwing kids into dumpsters. I never wanted to be that guy." All Rachel could do was stare as the boy, who she had never really spoken to before, poured his heart out to her. She had no idea what to do. So she listened. "I'm fed up of trying so hard to be perfect. The pressure's killing me."

They were silent for a few seconds as Finn's words sunk in before Rachel softly spoke, "Then don't let it."

"What?" Finn turned his head to the side to look at the girl beside him. She was staring at him with red-rimmed, chocolate coloured eyes and had mascara streaked across her cheeks. He thought he'd never seen anything so beautiful.

In that moment he wasn't Finn Hudson, star quarterback and class A jackass and she wasn't Rachel Berry, weird, gleek outsider and most unpopular girl in school. He was Finn and she was Rachel. It wasn't complicated by the social pressure of their peers or the unforgiving high school food chain. It was simple. Simple was all Finn Hudson needed right now.

"I'm saying don't let the pressure kill you. You don't have to suffer Finn. You can stand up and fight against those who try to put you down." She gave him a warm smile and wiped her eyes, scared she looked like a badger after all of her crying.

"I can't do that Rach." Rach. No one had ever called her that before. And coming from the most popular guy in high school it sounded one million times better.

"What can't you do Finn? Those guys are jerks and you and I both know that. Hell, the whole school knows that. But no one ever has the courage to stand up to them. You could do that. They'd listen to you."

"Why can't you get Blaine to do that? You'd be able to convince him."

"Oh believe me I've tried."

"What happened?"

"We stopped talking." She said it with a wince and Finn could see that what had happened between the two of them must have hurt her a lot more than she let on. "As I recall it was a Thursday after school. We were home alone because our fathers had to work late. Blaine and I were sitting in the living room watching television when he asked about my day. I told him about the amount of slushies I received and how that was the day David Karofsky decided to shove me into a locker." Finn felt his jaw clench at that part. He was going to kill Karofsky. Finn knew all about the way Karofsky bullied people in school, he'd even hurt Kurt a few times and that was bad. Shoving a defenseless girl over nothing crossed the line. "Blaine tried defending his teammate's actions but I could see no excuse for any kind of violence. I told him that but he just scoffed and told me that if I was less weird then I would have more friends and wouldn't be slushied everyday. I told him that if he was more of a brother to me and actually defended me against his so-called 'friends' then I wouldn't have to put up with the abuse. That was when the fight happened. We argued until Blaine stormed out of the house. That was, after he called me a gleek loser whose only friend was her MySpace page. We haven't spoken properly in four months." The tears had begun falling from Rachel's eyes again and Finn had to resist the urge to reach out and wipe them away with his hand.

"That… That sucks." Was all Finn could say.

"Yeah." Rachel nodded and looked down to the floor again before heaving a sigh and standing up from the deck. Finn followed her lead and stood facing her, attempting to give her a reassuring smile. "Right. I guess I better get going."

"What about Blaine? Weren't you supposed to take him home?" Finn didn't want her to leave. He liked being around her. She made him feel like he could finally be himself again.

"Blaine, right." Rachel lifted a hand to her forehead and sighed at the thought of dragging her brother home. "I can't leave him here and our parents would kill him if they found out he was out all night."

"Why do you care if he gets in trouble? I mean, you just told me how badly he treated you. Why would you want to help him after that?"

"He's my brother Finn. I know that right now he's acting like a preschooler and giving me the 'Noah Puckerman' treatment but I know that's not the real him. Blaine's not a jerk. He's sweet and kind and he's my brother. I just hope that one day he'll come to his senses and snap out of the attitude he has now. I know the real Blaine Anderson-Berry and that in there, that's not him. You'd do the same for Kurt right?"

"Right." Finn looked down to his shoes before looking back once again at the small girl in front of him. "Do you want me to help? I mean I could go in there and get him so you don't have to face those guys."

"You'd do that for me Finn?"

"Yeah of course. Blaine's my teammate. I've got to look out for him." Rachel felt the slight hope that had risen in her stomach plummet as she heard his words. He was doing this for Blaine. Not for her. She needed to remember that. "If you go and wait by your car I can have him out and in your back seat in five minutes." He smiled that crooked smile at her again and she realized that she could fall in love with that smile.

"Yeah, thanks Finn. That's really nice of you." She stepped down from the deck as she watched Finn turn towards the door of the house.

"Hey it's no problem. I'll see you in five." And with that he headed inside and Rachel began walking towards her car.

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><p>None of this could be real. Finn Hudson hadn't really had a full-length conversation with Rachel Berry. He couldn't have bared his heart and soul to her. He couldn't have listened when she rambled on about her family problems. He just couldn't. Rachel tried to convince herself that none of it had happened as she sat in the driver's seat of her car, waiting for the boy of her dreams to carry her brother out of the party. No. He wasn't really going to walk out of that house carrying Blaine and bring him over to her. He wasn't going to help her out.<p>

But as if on cue, there she saw the gorgeous boy step out of the gates of Noah Puckerman's house, Rachel's passed out brother in his arms. He smiled as he saw her climb out of the car and headed her way. She opened one of the back doors for him and he gently shoved Blaine onto the backseat, loud snores coming from his sleeping body. He slammed the door shut then turned to the girl beside him.

"Thank you Finn. Really, I don't think I could have done it without you." She stared up at him as he towered over her, a slight smile tugging at his lips.

"You'd have managed. You're stronger than you think Rachel." Finn shuffled his feet awkwardly and all he wanted to do was get away from the beautiful girl in front of him before he word-vomited all over her.

"You are too you know. Stronger than you think, I mean." She gave him one of her dazzling Rachel Berry smiles and he seemed genuinely grateful for her words. "Yeah… so… thank you, again." Before realizing what she was doing, Rachel stood on her tiptoes and placed a gentle kiss on Finn's cheek. After that, she quickly rushed to get back into her car and head home without looking back to see Finn blush from head to toe.

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><p>Rachel managed to get home quicker than she expected. She also managed to get Blaine to his bed without waking their parents, which was an achievement in itself. The entire ride home all she could think about was Finn Hudson. He was so sweet to her. He listened to her. He helped her. He went to see if she was okay after his best friend made her cry. Finn Hudson was a lot more than just the star quarterback. He was a lot more than Rachel Berry ever expected. He wanted to be his own person. He wanted to get away from all of the jerks that expected so much from him. He wanted out. He just didn't know how. That was what was eating at the back of Rachel's mind. Finn Hudson didn't know how to not be popular. He didn't know how to lose everything he had. This was why Rachel Berry was certain that Finn Hudson wouldn't be talking to her again anytime soon.<p>

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><p><strong>It would mean a lot to me if you reviewed this as it is my very first fic, so all criticism is welcome. I should be uploading more chapters, though they might slow down because of school and things like that. Thank you for reading this story and I hope you enjoyed it!<strong>


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